JuLy 8, 1915| 
NATURE 
513 

ORGANISATION OF SCIENTIFIC 
WORK IN INDIA.} 
HE Board of Scientific Advice for India was 
established in 1903. When first created it 
was composed exclusively of, and still includes, the 
officers for the time being in administrative charge 
of the various scientific departments of the 
Government of India. The object primarily in 
view was to enable the heads of these depart- 
ments to meet at stated intervals for the purpose 
of considering the programmes of work proposed 
to be undertaken by each during a coming season. 
The number of problems awaiting attention in so 
vast an area as our Indian Dependency has 
always been greater than the staffs of the com- 
bined scientific departments can ever hope to deal 
with at any one time. The avoidance of wasted 
effort is, therefore, in India more urgently essen- 
tial even than at home. The degree to which in- 
terest attaches to problems that lie on the border- 
line where the activities of cognate departments 
meet is just as great in India as elsewhere. 
Questions relating to the soil are of paramount 
importance in a land in which agriculture is the 
fundamental industry; such questions often affect 
the officers of the Geological Survey as much as 
they do those of the Department of Agriculture. 
Questions relating to the constituents of an indi- 
genous flora are often only second in importance 
to those concerning cultivated plants; such ques- 
tions may be of equal interest to the Botanical 
Survey and the Forest Service. Yet other ques- 
tions may be of interest to the zoologist on the 
one hand, to the veterinary officer, the forester, 
or the agriculturist on the other. 
The high traditions of all branches of the public 
service in India are of long standing, and to the 
self-effacement which is so characteristic of her 
officers has been united a singular absence of 
jealous rivalry and a peculiar readiness to render 
mutual aid. Instances of the simultaneous and 
conscious undertaking by two departments of the 
investigation of the same problem have therefore 
been in India remarkably rare. This being the 
case, the establishment of a Board of Scientific 
Advice, with as one of its main objects the auto- 
matic elimination of overlapping of work, was 
perhaps less essential than the institution of such 
a body might be in certain other countries. Still, 
if in this respect the functions of the Indian Board 
have scarcely had to be exercised, the existence 
of such a body remains a desirable precaution, 
while since the Board was constituted it has proved 
advantageous by bringing about what it was in 
a manner constituted to prevent. For when some 
border-line problem now suggests itself for study 
to some one department, other departments are in 
a position to consider, at the outset, its bearing 
on their own work and interests. Two depart- 
ments are now sometimes able to deal with one 
problem, and by simultaneous attack along 
different lines to secure results which neither de- 
1 Annual Report of the Dsoard of Scientific Advice for India for the Year 
1913-14. Pp.175. (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 
‘agts.) Price rs. 4a. 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95] 

partment, working alone, might hope to attain 
in double the time. In connection with this 
aspect of its activities the Board has, to the public 
advantage, been strengthened by the addition of 
scientific men who are not necessarily at the head 
of Government departments. 
Since its inception, this Indian Board has taken 
into consideration, along with programmes of 
future work, the progress of inquiries actually in 
hand and the results of investigations which have 
been concluded. Such inquiries are made the sub- 
ject of an annual report. This report by the Board, 
it should be understood, is not to be taken as a 
substitute for or even as a resumé of the annual 
reports of the different scientific departments 
represented thereon. Those who desire to make 
themselves acquainted with the operations of the 
Surveyor-General, the Meteorological Reporter, 
the Inspectors-General of Forestry or of Agricul- 
ture, the Directors of the Geological or the Botani- 
cal Surveys, must study the official reports issued 
by these various officers. But the reader who has 
no such special object in view, yet wishes to 
form some estimate of the extent to which scienti- 
| fic studies are being systematically prosecuted 
and scientific results are being economically ap- 
plied in India, will find in the Report of the Board 
of Scientific Advice succinct accounts by autho- 
rised and competent officers of these scientific 
activities during a given year. 
The report of the Board for 1913-14, which 
lies before us, testifies to the variety of these 
activities and to the attention bestowed on in- 
vestigation and research in India. Among the 
more generally interesting items in this particular 
report are an account by Mr. G. T. Walker of 
the equipment of the Solar Physics Laboratory 
at Kodaikanal; a note by Mr. H. H. Hayden on 
the materials available for the construction of 
Imperial Delhi; a report by Mr. R. C. Burton 
on the quantity of pitchblende available in the 
Singar mica mines; the record by Lieut.-Colonel 
G. P. Lenox-Conyngham of the completion of the 
Indian portion of the connection between the 
triangulations of Russia and India; and the more 
hopeful prospects with regard to the cultivation 
of the African plant known as Java Indigo, re- 
ported in a note by Mr. A. Howard of the Pusa 
Institute. But the whole report repays perusal, 
while one of its most useful features is the list 
of publications which accompanies each of its 
sections. 

NOTES. 
Ir is officially announced that Admiral of the Fleet 
‘Lord Fisher of Kilverstone has been appointed chair- 
man of the Inventions Board which is being estab- 
lished to assist the Admiralty in co-ordinating and 
encouraging scientific effort in its relation to the re- 
quirements of the Naval Service. A further announce- 
ment will be made as to the personnel of the new 
Board and the address of its offices. 
In reply to a question asked by Sir Philip Magnus 
in the House of Commons on July 1, the Minister of 
